The studio is located outside the beautiful town of Charlevoix, Michigan, about one mile from Lake Michigan and Lake Charlevoix.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

More Rugs

I have mixed feelings about weaving rugs. They weave fast if there isn't any variation to them, but I seem to be most attracted to the ones with stripes or more detail. There is such a lot of prep work that goes into a nice rug, that it usually takes longer than weaving it. Prepping is a lot of hard work, and some can be hard on the body. My hands are getting pretty sore, so I may soon have to take a break and get back to finer weaving with just yarn.

Before I got the Weaver's Delight up and running, I put a warp on Fanny. This one ended up with stripes in both directions. I was trying to use up some horrible old polyester doubleknit that I inherited. The warp will definitely wear out before the weft does! The majority of the rug is of a tan, gray, and white striped fabric cut about an inch wide. The narrower accent stripes are navy blue and burgundy strips. I cut them 1/2" wide and doubled them since these particular knits were kind of stiff. They packed in better that way. The red was twisted with the navy to give a little accent color. This rug is getting close to being finished. I haven't decided what will be next, but it may be one fabric, or one color with a twill variation. Denim could be a possibility if my hands and wrists hold up to the rotary cutting.

I ran into a little difficulty today weaving this small rug. This is the third rug I have made on the Weaver's Delight, and the manual warned about checking the bolts for tightness. Things started to loosen up, and suddenly I couldn't make anything move. Being new to the loom, it took me a bit of looking before I figured the trouble was with the "A" part needing to be scooted a little to the left, toward the "B" part. I was able to complete the rug, but it started doing it again just as I was finishing the hem. I will get back to it tomorrow, in the daylight, when I can see what I'm doing.

Most of the rugs I am weaving are probably going to go up for sale. Our church regularly goes on a mission trip to Kentucky every year, and they need to raise the funds for any repair projects they sign up to do. Hopefully, I will have a stack of rugs before next years trip.

I actually wove this rug for us. We needed a small rug by the tub/shower that wouldn't cover the heat register on the floor. The light colored fabric is a recycled mattress ticking. I like how the striped fabric looks when woven. The rest of the fabrics are from my large stash, chosen to match the colors in the shower curtain. I'm determined to gradually whittle away at the many boxes of fabric upstairs in my studio.

The 8 1/2 yards of warp that I put on the WD is quickly coming to an end. I will probably get one or two more rugs from it, and then I will probably try the plain weave cams on the next warp.

About Me

It has been a dream of mine to learn weaving, ever since I was a child. My opportunity came early in 2005, when my sister-in-law let me borrow her countermarche loom. I had a couple friends help me understand the loom and get me started. Those first couple projects were exciting for me. I realized there was a lot to learn, so I signed up for Weaver's Boot Camp at Heritage Spinning and Weaving, in Lake Orion, Michigan. The class was great, I met a wonderful circle of weaving friends, and it pushed me into areas that would have taken me years to explore if I had been learning on my own.